We elected to travel for a two day excursion to Holland (a region in The Netherlands) -- while the low-lying country was not high on our Must Visit List, it turned out to be a surprising paradox.
One side: The neighborhood of our coastal hotel - situated amongst a wooded wonderland, where cheery nuclear families rode their bicycles with baskets of flowers, streets were garbage and graffiti free, and the local bus toured us through the mansions of The Hague (you may know it from the International Criminal Court) - was upper class to say the least. So remote were we that it took a daily 45 minute walk through the woods to reach the nearest bus stop. The Rotterdam/Hague Airport was immaculately kept with hardwood floors and vases of fresh tulips. Everyone spoke English with a smile (in addition to Dutch), so we got to thinking.. could this be the suburb of our dreams?
The other side: Our visit to Amsterdam’s city center can be summed up by a girl on the train, “I would have liked it if I were in college, now it just seems kind of depressing.” We had a similar reaction. Ok, so you have to take into context that we arrived from Holland’s version of Door County and while Amsterdam canals are alluring and we only saw a small fraction of the city, it just (unfortunately) wasn’t our cup of tea. Something about the free flowing drugs and prostitutes behind the red-curtained windows along with the oddity of the people (a la birthplace of Van Gogh) confirmed this wasn’t a mainstream culture. One highlight was the Anne Frank House, a museum to the young writer who died in the Holocaust and became an international symbol because her family hid for several years of Nazi occupation (you can see why we were depressed).
We left with mixed feelings: our healthy countryside retreat contrasted against the seedy city promoting sex, pot, and tolerance for fringe elements of society.
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